


Valentines Day

by rufeepeach



Series: Time Of Day [6]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:34:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6750430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle is dissatisfied come Valentines Day, and tries to fix things. They don’t go as expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Valentine’s Day falls on a Wednesday this year.

Of course it does.

Her father is behind on the rent, too, which should just add to making the evening as awkward as is possible. There are two things that Belle and Mr Gold never discuss: sentiment and business.

But today is Valentine’s Day, and her father is behind on his payments

Belle walks home in the morning from her grocery run, deep in thought and not really looking where she is going.

After everything she and Gold have done together, and all of it behind her father’s back, she feels it would be a step too far to allow him to terrorise her papa as he does the rest of the town.

She is, after all, in charge of the finances: this is her fault. Her fault if they lose everything, and at the hands of her bedmate.

Belle knows she’s screwed everything up, and spectacularly so. She fucks the landlord greedily, selfishly, and doesn’t even have it in her to keep up with the payments at the same time. She’s facing either ruin or humiliation, and neither fate would stop her from showing up on his doorstep and shedding her clothing on Sunday night.

She won’t stop seeing him; she can’t keep things the way they are.

Everything’s a mess and it’s all her fault, and Belle is cursing viscously under her breath when she walks out into the street.

And is startled out of her daze by a car horn blaring, and the feeling of the car itself suddenly very close to her legs. She’d nearly been hit, she realises, and she can barely move for shock.

The driver is already reversing into a parking space, getting out of his car and running around to help her back onto the pavement, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she smiles up at him - he’s tall, fair-haired with an open, youthful face that is covered with guilt and concern, “I’m sorry, should have been looking.” She’s a little dazed still, shaking her head to clear it, the fear coming belatedly to her pounding heart.

“I was staring into space myself,” he says, and the anger in his voice is all for himself, “And I’m the one with the massive metal death-machine that nearly ran you over.”

She gives him a look, smirks, his panic helping to assuage her own, “It’s a car,” she tells him, slowly, “Far cry from a monster truck or a bulldozer.”

“You could have been hurt. Killed, even.”

“And it would have been my own stupid fault,” she tells him, gently, “I’m fine, no need to worry.”

He runs a hand through his hair, “I swear, I don’t usually run down pretty girls on national holidays. It was like I just spaced out for a second…”

“Happens,” she shrugs, “And today’s going to suck for me anyway, national holiday or no. Don’t worry about ruining it.”

“Oh?” he raised his eyebrows, “Would’ve thought you’d have a date,” he says, then blushes, “Oh, god, that was so cheesy, sorry!”

She giggles, ducks her head: it’s sweet to be flirted with by someone closer to her age, someone without darkness hovering in his eyes. Someone who doesn’t make her hot and weak and nervous with just a look.

“It was sweet!” she chides.

“It was terrible, and you’re too kind,” he disagrees, good-naturedly, “And a total stranger, oh lord, I’m sorry!”

She smiles, offers her hand, “I’m Isabelle. There, now we’re not strangers, so no more apologies, okay?”

He gives a relieved smile, takes her hand with a warm and simple grip, “Jim,” he introduces himself, “Otherwise known as the guy who almost made you roadkill.”

She rolls her eyes, “I’m fine. But…” she takes a deep breath, steels herself, “If you want to make it up to me, you could always… buy me a drink?”

She winces back, certain that the inevitable rejection - ‘I’m married’; ‘I have a girlfriend’; ‘My boyfriend can come too, right?’ - is forthcoming.

She doesn’t want to see Gold on Valentine’s Day. She doesn’t want to look him in the eye, the closest thing she has to romance, and truly understand everything she cannot have.

It’s not that she wants to cuddle on the sofa and watch bad movies and eat breakfast in bed, do everything couples do and be safe and happy and loved, with Mr Gold: of course not. He’s good to talk to and fantastic to fuck but he’s hardly boyfriend material.

But there’s still something depressing about seeing a fuck-buddy on the day when everyone else has a husband or a lover.

“That would be great,” Jim smiles, and Belle doesn’t know if she’s relieved or disappointed that he said yes.

But he’s easy on the eyes, and a little sweet and awkward in his flirting, and his face is warm and open. He’s the sort of guy her father wouldn’t mind her seeing. He could terrify no one.

“Great!” she beams, “Granny’s at eight?”

“It’s a date.” He smiles, soft and warm and honest, and she appreciates the calm, easy light in his eyes even as she’s missing dark, smouldering heat.

She hurries home with a few more flirting sentiments exchanged, and a phone number. It gives her a little strength, the thought that someone else could want her, someone who isn’t the enemy, half the time. That there’re men who could like her without having seen her bent over a table in her underwear.

She doesn’t regret a moment of her time with Mr Gold, but she can’t help but wonder how he sees her, sometimes. She could hardly blame him for judging her, considering how willing they both are to indulge any kinky idea either of them can come up with.

It’s just nice to be reminded that someone could want to talk to her without the knowledge that her dress would soon be on the floor.

So when Gold comes to ambush Moe outside their shop, Belle is the one waiting for him, head held high, polite smile on her lips.

“Miss French,” he greets, with a smile that is surprise covered by cordial menace.

It’s a subtle reminder, and he’s right to use it: here they are Miss French and Mr Gold, tenant and landlord. But there is a certain softness in his eyes, warmth, that wouldn’t be shown to another. Warmth that, two months ago, would have made her stomach clench in anxiety, because they weren’t even supposed to be friends.

But she’s become fond of him, and knows he feels the same. She supposes that, after months of seeing one another twice a week, of talking and laughing and fucking, and the intimacy that comes from all three combined, they were bound to come to at least like one another.

She wonders if there’s anyone else in town he would consider even this much of a friend.

Yes, she thinks, they’re friends, but she has a date for tonight. They’re friends and sometimes they fuck and that’s all it’ll ever be, thank God.

“Mr Gold.” She says, with the same dangerous formality. This is a game they don’t play, but still she knows the rules.

“Unless you’re concealing two months of back rent on your person, I would suggest standing aside.” He says.

“You can’t take the van.” Belle might be his friend (Belle might have cried out his name in ecstasy, over and over; Belle might, in the darkness afterward, shared little secrets and heard them in return; Belle might even have dressed up as his favourite little fantasies just to make him smile) but Miss French is a businesswoman, and they need the van. Without it, they have no hope of making ends meet, and no hope of getting their debts repaid.

He laughs, and she resists the automatic urge to smile with him, or to smack him, either would come entirely naturally, “The terms of the loan were very specific, Miss French. The van is collateral, and I am well within my rights to collect.”

“Except that it makes no practical sense to do so.” She says, calmly, trying not to shake. Perhaps some part of her had hoped that he’d be good to her even here: perhaps she’d thought he’d give her some leeway.

She is surprised to find that she’s glad he hadn’t.

If he gave her extensions, treated her family’s business better because two nights a week they share a bed, she would feel cheap. She would feel like a whore, and then they’d have to stop, and she wants no part of any of that.

(Or she’d feel like she was somehow his, and she has a date with a nice guy tonight, and she belongs to no one but herself. She needs no favours.)

Friends are fair to each other. And Gold is never less than fair.

“Oh, how so?” he smiles with polite interests, eyebrows raised as he expects her to fail to convince him. There’s a challenge in his eyes, daring her to give it her best shot.

“We need repayment from the Mayor’s office, and she is a week late. Without the van to sell the roses we bought for the holiday, you have no chance of ever getting any of your money. And I know for a fact that the repayment plus interest is worth more than the van itself, especially considering the wear and tear it’s seen since we bought it. You make a loss by taking the van, in the long term.”

“On the contrary, dear, what I lose in monetary value I would more than recoup by making an example of someone who tried to cheat out of their repayments. People need to know they cannot break deals with me.”

“And people also need to know that they can make simple mistakes or fall victim to circumstance without losing everything.” She retorts, “Good business is built on trust, Mr Gold.”

There is a pause, silence in the street, and he steps closer. “Many things are, Miss French,” his voice is suddenly low, his smile smirking and knowing, “Do you trust me?”

And oh, that’s a dirty trick.

He asked the same question, with the same tone, the same look in his eyes, a week ago to the day. Right before he tied her to the bedposts and blindfolded her, and proceeded to tease her with his mouth and fingers and oh, gods, those ice cubes he’d trailed across her breasts and down between her legs, until her throat was hoarse from screaming…

She swallows hard, quashing the memory, and he sees, his smirk widening, “That depends entirely on the situation, and right now? No, I don’t.” She says, “You don’t play fair.”

“Indeed.” He agrees, casting a somewhat lascivious glance over her form, licking his lips almost involuntarily, “I have other appointments, Miss French,” he says, after a moment, “I will recheck the numbers, and continue this conversation later.”

“Care to put a time on that? Because I’d like to know how long I can tell my father we have to wait.”

“This evening, come to the shop. We can discuss in more… detail.”

He drops the mask of the impersonal businessman on the last word, and smiles at her, and he is the man she is so fond of, (when, when did she become so fond? When did he become someone she wanted to smile with?) whose kisses make her knees week and whose jokes make her laugh so hard she can’t breathe.

The transition isn’t fair, and neither is his offer, but she cannot find it in her to be even annoyed, much less angry.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” she says, and shrugs, smiling in an odd and vicious kind of victory, “I have a date.”

“Oh?” the hard mask slips over, and is that jealousy she can see?

She’s not pleased with the idea that he’d be jealous, not for itself, of course not. That would imply that she wanted him to feel more for her than casual friendship and careless lust, and she can’t want that. That would mean she’d have to walk away: that would mean she cared in return.

But it does prove her assumption right: he’s begun to consider her as something that belongs to him, and that needs to be corrected.

She is not his to protect any more than she is his to possess.

If he belonged to her, if they’d started this with honesty and kind words, perhaps dinner and a movie before they ended in bed together, then maybe they could allow jealousy. But neither of them want to be together out of the shadows, and so he cannot quibble what she does in broad daylight.

“Yep,” she smiles, “So I’m afraid that it’ll have to be tomorrow, at the earliest.”

“Seven in the morning. Come by the shop.” He says, immediately, his smile vicious: he knows how she hates early mornings, and more so, knows that this means she’ll have to be in bed early.

Not that she was planning to go anywhere further than perhaps a peck goodnight with Jim, if they even got that far.

“Alright, I’ll see you then.” She says, and shakes his hand warmly, and doesn’t linger.

He doesn’t look angry so much as hurt.

He looks sad, when she glances into his eyes, and he can’t be sad. Sad makes her the guilty party; sad means she didn’t consider his feelings, because Mr Gold doesn’t have feelings.

Does he?

“Don’t let me keep you, Miss French,” he smiles, tightly, “I’m sure you have business to attend to.”

“Indeed. Good morning, Mr Gold.” She turns and walks away, but she can feel his eyes on her right until she closes the door and collapses in the hallway.

She won’t cry. She won’t.

It would be ridiculous, stupid beyond belief, to cry over Mr Gold’s deep, dark, suddenly tragic eyes, or the fact that she suddenly wishes she could hug him in the street. As much for her benefit as for his: he’s one of her closest friends, agreement or no, and she’s suddenly in need of some comfort.

She sits a while longer, until she can trust herself not to start feeling things she shouldn’t, and then picks herself up and goes to tell her father the good news.

—

Jim’s really a great guy.

He teaches PE at the elementary school, he volunteers at the shelter on the weekends, and as they walk from Granny’s to the movie theatre he even sees her shivering in her leather jacket and lends her his coat. He’s a great guy.

But his jokes don’t make her laugh as if she’ll never stop, and his eyes don’t rest on her as if he never wants to look away, and she never feels the need to chide teasingly, bat his arm at his behaviour. He’s kind to Ruby and Granny comes to say hello, and he chats with them like an old friend. He makes no remarks, no witty comments, as they walk away.

Belle realises more and more as the evening wears on, as they make light conversation and discuss nothing more than the mundane, that she has been ruined for niceness.

She misses sarcasm, she misses the darkness behind the almost-kind smile, she misses intensity. Jim is nice, safe, warm, and utterly, utterly bland.

She is bitter as they walk from Granny’s, even wrapped in his coat. He smells of brand-name aftershave and where his awkward flirting had been cute, before, it’s a little irritating now. He has no intention of whisking her away or of challenging her: Jim is comfortable, stable, and happy to let others remain that way also.

Gold always teases, argues, comments. He draws her out and makes her use claws she didn’t think she had before they met. Their flirting is never awkward, and always hot and tense and electric.

Her hand doesn’t spark when it brushes Jim’s.

She feels safe with him, but no more so than when she stays over at Ashley or Ruby’s, or when she walks with her father. Jim would make a wonderful friend, she thinks, but there’s nothing there beyond that.

And it makes her sad, bitter, miserable, even.

She’d wanted to be wanted without the sex and secrets muddying everything.

She hadn’t realised how much she also wanted to be the one doing the wanting. How much she’d needed this to work out, to convince herself she hadn’t been sucked in, darkened, corrupted, polluted by knowing him. By letting Gold under her skin, and letting him ruin her.

She is ruined. She’d let him ruin her.

“So,” Jim stands outside the movie theatre, hands in his pockets, “What do you feel like seeing?”

None of the options on the lists appeal. But then, all she wants now is to run to the pink house on the other side of town, and beat Mr Gold senseless. Pound at him with fists or furniture or that damned cane of his until he is begging for forgiveness, until he is sorry for spoiling her so.

She has been ruined, and now she’d like some payback.

So she is not sorry when, at that moment, Kathryn Nolan comes along the street, and stops her to say hello, “Hey, Kathryn!”

“Belle!” Kathryn smiles and comes to join them, before she sees Jim and stops, “Oh, I’m not interrupting am I?”

“No, of course not,” Belle smiles, and Jim doesn’t even look too disappointed: it seems she’s not the only one not enthralled by their date. “How are you? Where’s David?”

“Oh, he’s working,” Kathryn says, and Belle’s heart pangs for the resigned little note in her friend’s voice.

“On Valentine’s day?”

“Some animal emergency at the shelter, they needed someone to come help and he’s… dedicated.” Kathryn nods, smiling, “I guess that’s what I love about him. He doesn’t give up when he cares about something.”

“Yeah,” Belle sighs, “Oh, sorry, this is Jim. Jim, this is Kathryn.”

“Pleasure.” Jim smiles, and Belle can’t help but notice the way they linger as their hands touch, just for a moment. A little moment longer and it’s all it takes, and Belle wants to scream and claw and punch a wall, she’s suddenly so angry.

“So, what do you do, Jim?” Kathryn is asking, and Belle must have phased out for longer than she’d thought because they’re chatting away.

“Oh, I work a the school,” Jim says, “Teaching kids to catch things, trying not to get hit, that kinda thing.”

“Oh,” Kathryn laughs, a real laugh, “I always liked phys ed as a kid, but I remember dodgeball being rough on the teachers.”

“Yep,” Jim’s beaming, nodding, and Belle’s a little insulted: yes, she’s been unfavourably comparing him to Mr Gold all night in her head, but a pretty blonde shows up and he’s suddenly got no time for her at all! “I was black and blue last time, you have no idea!”

“I bet,” Kathryn smiles, “I wish I could do more exercise but work keeps me busy, you know.”

“Well walking’s always good for fitness,” Jim says, and Belle can see where it’s going and she wants to feel… anything, really. Jealousy or irritation or happiness, anything but this entire lack of emotion.

Jim and Kathryn are smiling and chatting and their flirting is not awkward, but it’s so subtle that Belle thinks that perhaps they don’t even see it. Because Jim’s on a date with another woman and Kathryn is married - to a useless piece of shit, in Belle’s opinion, but she’d never say it - and they’re both lovely, good, honest people.

Belle is none of those things, not really, not anymore.

“Hey, Kathryn?” she asks, and Kathryn looks over with a kind of flushed smile Belle hasn’t seen her wear since David woke up, “You want to come in with us?”

“On Valentines Day?” Kathryn asks, suddenly stiff and awkward, “No, I couldn’t impose.”

“No, it’s fine,” Belle smiles, “I’d hate to leave you on your own tonight since David’s working, and I’m sure Jim won’t mind?”

Jim looks grateful, relieved even, and Belle can’t help but feel a little insulted. Surely her company wasn’t that awful for an evening?

They go in, chatting and laughing as friends, and after a moment the tension is broken entirely. It is no longer a date, it’s an outing with friends, and Belle relaxes just a little. She hadn’t enjoyed being out with someone other than Gold anyway: she’d been stupid even to try.

David’s an asshole, by the sounds of what Kathryn lets slip, and Jim deserves someone sweeter than Belle. So she leaves them to go to the bathroom, and takes her purse with her, and doesn’t come back to the movie: she doesn’t think they notice.

She’s walking vaguely toward home when she sees a familiar black Cadillac parked on the corner. With a driver desperately trying to turn the ignition and drive off before she recognised him.

Too late.

Apparently Gold is keeping tabs on her. Apparently she is being stalked, this Valentine’s Day, and what did he expect to do if her date had worked out? She’d thought, if things went well, they’d call it quits and be awkward for a while, and then end up as friends.

Apparently, he’d planned to watch her all night, and then probably - if she knows him, which she does, for her sins - go and be vaguely but scarily threatening to the poor guy when she was gone.

They weren’t supposed to meet until tomorrow morning, and then it was a business arrangement.

Except she’s running toward the car, wanting nothing more than to dive inside and cry on his shoulder and sleep at his house, spend the last hours of the day in his arms. Her heart breaks a little as he drives away, apparently still hoping he can avoid the issue altogether.

For God’s sake: she doesn’t even know the man’s first name!

But she stands, and watches him drive away, and the tears on her face are the final straw.

She’s acting as if she’s in love with him.

Probably because he’s ruined her, and corrupted her, and made her happier than she has ever been before, and broken her heart.

She’s in love with him and he just drove away.

A crazy, stupid, horribly wonderful idea forms in her head, and she strides off down the street, encouraged to see the light of the drug store still on. She goes in with purpose, and finds the hardware section quickly, making her selections.

She is ruined, damaged, her innocence lost months ago.

He took it the moment she slid onto a bar stool next to him and he smiled at her.

It’s time to show him what he’s created, she thinks, and to teach him to stay put when she’s out with someone else. It isn’t fair, she thinks, when he clearly keeps to their arrangement and feels no more for her than lust and perhaps a little friendship, for him to then keep her from finding love with someone else.

It isn’t fair for him to have made her fall in love with him, when she cannot do the same to him.

David Nolan - not at the pet shelter, and she wants to wring his worthless neck except she set his wife up on a date with another man, so she’s gone one better - is in the line in front of her.

“Two cards?” she asks, frowning, even though Ruby’s told her about David and Mary Margaret Blanchard and she knows the story. She wants to know what lies he’ll tell (months ago she would have been saddened, and kept her mouth shut: she’s certainly changed since then), how he plans to hurt one of her friends.

“Yeah.” David says, a little awkwardly, and Belle can’t help but push him further.

“Sounds like fun.” she giggles, the brainlessness she used to wear so well slipping on like an old coat.

“Yeah,” David smiles, “She is.”

“Wow,” she nods, smiles, “Lucky girl. Your wife, yeah?”

“Of course. They’re both so… us.” David smiles a handsome but gormless, empty smile. Belle wants to slap it off his face.

“Well, that must be nice for you.”

“You’re not buying any cards? Belle, isn’t it? The florist?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s me,” she nods, “And no. We’ve had some, um, problems with the integrity of the arrangement,” she rambles, gesturing to the rope and duct tape in her arms, “Need these to put things as they should be.”

“Right.” David nods, with no idea of what he’s agreeing to, and Belle giggles inside. Gold really has made her a bad person, but she can’t seem to stop. “Well, you know, these old houses, they’re not great with the integrity.”

Belle smirks, “I don’t know, the old ones have more strength to them. They last longer, you know?”

“Yeah, well, sounds to me like structural damage. You need me to take a look?”

Belle snickers, she can’t help it, but covers it with a cough, “No,” she shakes her head, “This one’s all mine: I can sort it out. Release some of the tension, give it the attention it needs, ease out the kinks in the… wood. I’ve done it plenty before.”

“Alright,” David nods, doubtfully, “If you’re sure.”

“Positive.” Belle smiles, sunnily, “It’s really a one-woman job, anyway.”

David pays for his purchases and, with a muttered goodbye and another of those hollow smiles, is gone. Belle does not envy Mary Margaret or Kathryn: David’s gorgeous, but he has an empty, useless look to him.

Mr Gold might be an asshole. He might have taken her and twisted her, and made her someone darker and different. He might be older, and a little weathered, and not as blandly handsome as David or Jim. But he is never empty, never useless, never meaninglessly hurtful. Gold, at least, always understands what he is doing.

Except when he is with her: except when he was smiling warmly and kissing deeply and making her fall in love with him.

It is time to make him understand: it is time to teach him a lesson.

Belle pays for her purchases, and heads in the direction of the pink house with new purpose: time for payback.


	2. Chapter 2

He hadn’t been spying on her.

He had simply been bored, distracted, restless in his home. He could not focus, not on the books nor on his reading, nor on cooking his supper. He scalded himself on the pan and splashed boiling water over his hand from the kettle, and decided that perhaps reheating something from the refrigerator was the better option.

Finally, he has to go out, he cannot stay in his empty house.

Belle is on a date with another man.  
The thought spins through Gold’s head as he drives back as fast as he can, and he doesn’t stop to think that the man in question, Midas’ golden knight of a son in law, was nowhere to be seen when Gold caught sight of her. Or should that be when she caught sight of him? He’d been spotted. And she had looked outraged and miserable and had been storming over when he drove off as fast as he possibly could.

Perhaps she won’t remember, he prays, hopelessly, perhaps he can convince her later that it was just a car similar to his own. It had been night time after all, and many men wear suits and drive black cars.

He had driven by a few times earlier in the evening, ostensibly on the way back from later rent collections from those citizens conveniently out of their homes when he visited earlier. She hadn’t seen him then.

She looks beautiful tonight, which adds a new dimension of unfairness to this whole thing. It is Valentine’s Day, which his Mr Gold memories inform him is a romantic holiday in this world, and she is wearing a little red dress with a flared skirt that comes to just above her knees, with a figure-hugging leather jacket over the top. Her stilettos make her legs look a mile long.

That image won’t leave his mind, and neither will the thought of the golden knight with his hands on her, his mouth on hers, and of Belle allowing it, even encouraging it. She seemed so happy about this date of hers this morning, and Gold wants so badly for her to be happy.

He just can’t specify that he wants her happy with him.

Because if she’s happy, if he’s happy, if true love works its will and they’re together and in love and happy, then the Curse will do its work also. They will face tragedy and misfortune and make all the wrong choices, and be twice as miserable as they might have been had they never been happy at all.

Better this numb dissatisfaction than true unhappiness.

He wonders, dully, as he enters his home, if she will end their arrangement. He wonders if the knight will ever know that once his girlfriend was the mistress of a monster.

Because it will work out: how could it not? Belle is perfect, beautiful and intelligent and with a wicked kind of humour beneath the perfect amount of innocence, the ability to find wonders in the mundane, the sweetness in the bitter.

The knight may not be a great thinker, but Gold must admit that he is noble and true. He would have to see these things about Belle, see her perfection, and want her. Who could not want her?

Rumpelstiltskin was never an especially jealous man, and even now, striving for anger at the golden knight, for the ability to growl and threaten and strike and defend his territory… all he hopes is that Belle is happy.

Belle always deserved better than him. And even though, at cursebreak, the knight will find his princess, Belle deserves some small amount of happiness before she is hauled back to a monster.

So he sits himself at the kitchen table, and pours a glass of whiskey, and stares into melancholy space.

At least he had her for a few months: at least he was allowed that.

And now he’ll let her go as he did before, and this time she will take the out. This time she won’t come back.

Except, as soon as he’s thought that, there is a slam of the door, and he can hear angry heels on his floor, “Gold?”

He gave her a key, once, for emergencies. She’d smiled as he did it, and then said she’d never use it, that there’d never be a reason. Now she’s here, in his home, and he can only call, “Belle?”

She follows his voice into the kitchen, and he stands as she enters - a little gesture of formality that she won’t recognise, not anymore - entirely stunned by what he sees.

He’ll never not be stunned by her, it seems.

Her make up is a little worn, her hair down from the upswept style she’d worn earlier. She is breathing hard, and he’d not notice except her chest is heaving and the neckline of that dress is a little low and he can’t help but stare. He doesn’t think that’ll help his case, but she’s here and that’s all that matters. Really, that’s all that has ever mattered.

“You’re a bastard.” She snarls, and he smirks because she’s so gorgeous when she’s angry, and because he’s a little surprised she didn’t expect it, if he’s honest.

“You say that so often,” he notes, “what is the charge against me this time, dear?”

“You were following me.” She accuses, and he doesn’t bother to deny it, not really.

“I was driving and I saw you.” He shrugs, “No helping that.”

“You’re a liar, too,” she spits, but she strides closer, and he hadn’t noticed with her arms wrapped under her jacket, but she is holding something in both her hands. “You were parked, watching the movie theatre.”

“I stopped to check my cell phone.” He denies, “I glance up and there you are charging at me.”

“So you decided to run away?” she laughs, and it’s derisive and disbelieving but her lips are red as cherries and twice as sweet, and he’s starving for her all of a sudden. All the time. Always. “Only guilty people run.”

“And cowards.” He tells her, gently, and the word is ashes on his tongue but he speaks it anyway. “Perhaps you’re simply too terrifying for my poor little soul?”

She stops, stares for a moment, speechless. She has that effect on him sometimes, too: he understands.

Then she laughs, a real laugh, bright and reluctant and perfect. “You’re not a coward,” she smirks, “But you should be scared of me.”

“And why would that be, dearie?” he cocks his head to one side, but swallows hard: there’s something unbearably perfect about hearing that denial from her lips. She doesn’t know what she’s saying; she doesn’t know how wrong she is. But the untruth is still beautiful, all the same.

“Because I have these,” she brandishes her hands, and now he can see what she holds. Duct tape. Rope. Newly bought. He gulps and she smirks her victory, “And I intend to use them.”

There’s something behind her eyes, something harsh and keening and desperate, something dark. He wonders what happened to her tonight, what changed.

“Oh?”

“Yep.” She pops the ‘p’, and then smiles, sweetly, “So step back, please.”

She strides toward him closer, so they’re nearly touching, and he backs away as instructed, intrigued as to what she will do next. The back of his legs hit the chair, and she places two fingertips on his shoulder and push him down to sit.

She sits down on his lap as he leans toward her, and they crash in the middle, lips and teeth and tongue, desperation and some new emotion, something he can’t name and definitely doesn’t understand. She’s different tonight: she’s changed somehow. He doesn’t believe her confidence, nor her teasing. Something is wrong.

They break away and he is panting for breath. He is dazed by their sudden passion; he doesn’t expect her to grin, wickedness and sin and some kind of victory once more, and suddenly slide back and drop to her knees in front of him, placing his hands on his lap. “Don’t move a muscle.” She warns.

He swallows, hard, but he won’t give in, “And why not, dear?”

She gives him a hard look, “Because if you do, I’ll walk away and never come back. I’ll leave my key on the table and you’ll never touch me again.”

She means it, too. He can see that. So he nods, and her smile comes back, even if now he can see that it’s a little bit cracked, a little bit false, all wrong on her rose-petal lips.

Then she has turned her attention to her work, and has pulled out the duct tape she’d placed on the table while they kissed. She runs her hands over his calves, and then, almost gently, wraps the tape around his ankle, binding him firmly to the chair leg. She does the same to the other while he watches in shock, and he tests the bonds a little discovering there is no way he can get himself free.

“Belle,“ he starts, in shock and yes, some fear, because while this is certainly not new territory for them there’s usually discussion beforehand, “What’re you doing?”

She stands, smirks down at him, and everything about her tonight is a little bit off, a little bit different, “Don’t tell me you don’t want this,” she purrs, and he swallows hard, because she’s right, of course she is: he wants nothing more than everything she’s willing to give.

But she has already slid her hand down his front, boldly, without preamble. She cups him through his trousers, and he’s already half-hard in her hand as she grinds her palm against him, bracing herself with a hand on the back of his chair, the tips of her hair brushing his chest. “Because that’d be another lie, wouldn’t it?”

He makes a soft whimper, and nods, and she smiles that same cracked smile again. “See?” she says, “When you don’t speak, you can’t lie.”

Then the pulls out the duct tape, snips off a piece with a pair of heavy scissors he hadn’t noticed, and places the tape over his mouth.

His heart races, terror replacing excitement, but even with his hands still free he doesn’t do anything to remove the tape. There’s a part of him that knows he deserves this, that wants her punishments, but then the rest is just terrified that he won’t be able to breathe.

“Tell me to stop,” she whispers, “And I’ll let you go.” Then she snickers, and he rolls his eyes, “Oh, wait, you can’t.”

She runs a hand down his cheek, and her nails scratch his skin. They stare at each other, and he thinks for a moment, for one moment, that she might strike him. The fear and hurt and utter, bewildering heartbreak in her eyes is just too much, and he feels that if he caused that, that horrible pain he can see for just a moment, then he deserves her blows.

“You would deserve it, you know,” she whispers, as if she’s read his mind, scratching him again with her blood red nails, just hard enough to hurt, “If I hit you.”

He wishes he could tell her he knows, that he understands that, that he’d forgive her in a moment if she took her revenge in violence. He ruined her in the last world and then he took her and did it again in this one, and one moment of pain would never make up for that.

He just nods, once, and closes his eyes, waiting for the blow.

It doesn’t come. And when he looks back up at her she has softened, the hard, violent hurt softened and faded into something else, something deeper and sadder and sweeter: understanding, acceptance, forgiveness. For a moment this facade of his love is herself again, and he loves her so fiercely he can hardly breathe for it. He’d hold her, stroke her hair, but he is afraid to move even his unbound hands, for fear of her anger; for fear of disappointing her and hurting her again.

He makes some soft, pathetic noise, and she must see some of the wild fear in his eyes because she sighs, “Fine,” she concedes, “The tape was a bit much. Tear it off if you want.”

He sighs, gratefully, and rips the tape from his mouth without even wincing at the sting.

“I have a better idea, anyway.” She says, sweetly, and drops the tape, picking up the rope instead. She cuts a length of it and wraps it around his head to form a gag, and it’s worse than the tape because he could spit it out, because he could fail her. He was already too weak for her first idea, but she doesn’t seem disappointed. Not yet.

He didn’t give her her freedom: he followed her, and she ended up dragged back here. He owes it to her to do as she says: to dance to her tune, to be obedient. She cannot be free, and so her binding him is poetic justice.

She ties it at the back, and he bites down to show willing, to show he will do as she says. She nods, appreciatively, and takes his hands in hers, pulling his arms back around the chair.

She wraps his wrists in rope, and ties them too, so he can’t move from the chair, or speak.

She kisses him, then, seating herself back on his lap and slipping her tongue under the gag in his mouth, teasing his tongue and only lapping harder as he tries and fails to reciprocate. It’s a messy, futile exercise, but she licks and nips at his lips, and he groans as she grinds her hand back against him, bucking his hips up against her hand in a futile attempt to gain more friction.

She pulls back, and he moans in frustration as she presses a kiss to his temple.

“Shhh,” she breathes, “Stay still now.”

He makes a noise of protest, then bites down hard on the gag when she squeezes him hard through his trousers, and sucks on his throat, attacking his skin and drawing the flesh into her mouth, to leave a bruise where no collar or hairstyle will cover it. Marking him. He groans low in his throat: he’s hers. He always has been and he always will be. Even when she finds her escape, even when she realises how much better her life would be without him, he will be hers until the day he dies.

Then she moves to the side, and flutters butterfly kisses along his throat, making him swallow hard as she moves up to his chin, and back to his lips, laughing when he tries to kiss her back and fails around the rope in his mouth.

Her hand is at work on his flies, and she finally frees him from both trousers and boxers, and takes him in her warm, soft hand. “Do you want this, Gold?” she asks, softly, “Do you want me to jerk you off in the kitchen like this?”

He shakes his head, a little desperately, because it’s so much less than what he wants. But his mind is gone as she pulls her hand up and plunges back down, slipping further into his pants to cradle his balls in her palm. His breathing is fast and heavy as he tries to keep still, as he tries not to shunt himself into her hand, make her move faster, harder.

He will not disappoint her; he will not fail her. Not again.

“Oh?” she laughs, throaty and husky and a little discordant still, “Then how about my mouth?” she asks, silkily, slipping down to her knees before him and leaning between his spread legs, slipping her soft red lips around the straining head of his cock and lapping at the places she knows from experience will drive him out of his mind.

She takes him deeper in, and his eyes roll back in his head as she pulls back, hollowing her cheeks and sucking hard, releasing him with a wet little ‘pop’. “Hmm? Is that what you want? Do you want me on my knees, sucking you off?”

He shakes his head again, although it’s difficult, although the offer is so tempting and he could come right here and now from just the hand wrapped around the base, and her warm breath on his skin.

She stands up again, and sits on the table in front of him, bracing one foot absently on the little ledge of the chair seat between his knees. She swings the other leg, and eyes him speculatively, as if coming to a decision. She wriggles a little, eyes locked on his, and manages to get her red, lacy underwear down her legs, holding them between thumb and forefinger. He moans, head falling back, and she laughs.

“You’re no fun when you can’t talk.” She decides, and leans down, reaching behind his head to untie the gag at the back.

Her breasts are so close to his face, and he can’t help but lean forward and press a kiss to the space just above. She freezes, hand braced behind his head, and he takes that as encouragement, slipping his tongue into the space between her beasts and lapping at the soft, hot skin.

She moves back slowly, and says, “There, much better.”

“Belle…”

“We do this every week, Gold,” she says, “In one way or another. But you don’t want to now?”

“I want you.” He says, and she called him a liar, but now he will speak truth. All he’s ever wanted was her, his Belle, and her hands and her mouth alone won’t do. He needs to feel her, have her, give her back even just a fraction of the pleasure she gives him just by smiling, just by breathing.

“You don’t even know me.” She says, with a soft, sad smile, as she seats herself back straddling his lap, and all the confidence, the firmness, has gone. She is suddenly smaller, and tired, and he wishes he could just tell her that he knows everything, how she takes her tea and her mother’s name and her favourite book since she was six. He knows she loves to dance but has two left feet; that her favourite stories are the ones where the princesses are brave and the monsters are saved. He knows everything about her, but he can’t tell her how.

He knows her, and he loves her, and he can’t say a damn word.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her, finally, “And wicked in the best way, and smarter than anyone I know. How could anyone resist you?”

“That’s not fair.” She chides, softly, but she’s blushing, smiling all the same, “I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Mr. Gold.” He says and she laughs, small and sad and gone in a moment.

“Your real name. You can’t have been Mr. Gold forever.”

He sighs, and prepares a half-truth, because she’s right: he is a liar, and she wouldn’t believe the truth even if he told her.

“Rum.” He says, softly, “That’s the closest thing I have to a real name. Rum.”

“Rum.” She repeats, and nods, “Well,” she laughs, mirthlessly, “That’s at least one thing, thanks.”

“Belle-“

“No. No.” She smiles, and he fears she might cry, that he won’t be able to hold her or help her, bound as he is, monster that he is, “Don’t try. Don’t worry. Just… kiss me? Please?”

He nods, and again they meet in the middle, although this new kiss has something more to it, something soft and hard and hot and bright, something brilliant. She kisses like she wants to melt into his bones, wrapped around him, her feet braced on the floor behind him, hands tangled in his hair. He can’t get close enough, he can’t touch her, can’t crush her against him, and it’s killing him that he’s still bound.

“Belle…” he pleads, as she pulls away, her lips swollen and lipstick ruined, eyes dark and bright, “Please, I need to touch you, please-“

“No.” She smiles, mischievous and desperate all at once, “No, no, no, none of that. I’m in charge here: if I let you go, I go too. And I don’t come back.” She grinds down against him, her bare pussy hot and wet against his cock, and he nearly comes right then and there, gritting his teeth to hold back. “And you don’t come until I tell you to. Do you understand the rules?”

“Belle, Belle, please, just… please…”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” He growls, more fired up and turned on and ready than he can remember ever being before, and she laughs.

“Good.”

And then she sits back on his knees, weight braced on her feet on the floor, and slips a hand between her own thighs, stroking herself while he watches.

He makes some incomprehensible noise, and she laughs, places one hand on his shoulder for balance and pushes her hand a little harder, shunting her hips into her own touch as she draws her hand up slowly, and smiles. She presses her fingers to his lips, and says, “Clean them, please.”

He sucks on her fingertips gladly, drinking down every little bit of her flavour he can find from her skin, sucking them into his mouth and running his tongue all over the soft pads and knuckles, until she finally pulls them away, and braces that hand on his other shoulder.

She wriggles, lining them up, and the heat radiating from her sets him on fire. She waits a beat longer than expected, hangs there in the balance until he is so desperate for her he might die from it.

Then slowly, she sinks down onto him, taking him all the way inside and arching in pleasure, a soft gasp escaping her throat. She is so hot and wet, so perfect wrapped around him, and he leans in as far as his bonds will allow to worship her throat, to nibble on the side and suckle, to kiss and make her want to kiss him back.

He stays still, as she commanded, and she does not deny him his feverish kisses, instead moving so he can reach her better, so he can kiss along the side of her shoulder and down over her collarbones, over the soft curves of the tops of her breasts and to breathe in between, as she rides him slowly, one long deep take after another, a rhythm both perfect in its intensity and far too slow, too deep for his liking.

He wants her to ride him hard, to take and take and give nothing back, to sate herself on him and leave him ragged and aching. He wants to bury himself in her and know he belongs only to her, that she understands that this is a burning thing, bright and warm and all-consuming, and one day it will destroy them both, and they’ll be turned to ashes by the flames.

She kisses his mouth, gasps and whimpers against his open lips as she moves on him, as her pace picks up and he starts to match her thrusts with his own, until they’re desperate and wild, and he is straining and she is riding him as hard as he’d wanted, and yet never quite hard enough, never enough that she’ll never have to stop.

He can feel it building, and he is ready to explode, but she told him to hold on and so he grits his teeth and kisses her and tries to hold on, tries not to disappoint her, disobey her again.

“Rum,” she moans, and the sound of his almost-name is enough to send him reeling, and it is her turn to gasp his name on every exhale, every time she sinks down hard onto him and takes him so far inside her, angled to hit a spot that is making her shake and moan, “Rum, Rum, Rum…”

“Yes,” he breathes, “Yes, Belle, perfect Belle…”

He wants to tell her how beautiful she is, how much he loves her, how he never wants to let her fall away from him. How he wants her with him for the rest of his life, forever.

But he can’t, because those aren’t the rules.

She cries out when he shifts his hips slightly, and suddenly she is kissing him and screaming into his mouth, and he can feel her clench hard around him as she moves faster, her lips slipping from his to run across his cheek, riding out her orgasm in a series of beautiful, breathy little cries.

“Come for me,” she commands, voice low in his ear, “Go on, come for me.”

He groans, low in his throat, and one more hard snap of her hips and he is done, coming so hard inside her he can barely see for the stars bursting behind his eyes, barely hear for the blood pounding in his ears. The pleasure is acute and almost agonising, almost painful in its intensity, and he can feel Belle kissing and nipping at his throat as he comes down, still sliding easily against him, easing him off his high.

They sit for a moment, staring at each other, as he softens and slips out of her, and there is silence.

For a moment, he thinks she might say something. He thinks she might laugh or make some sarcastic quip, might brush off what just happened. He thinks she might say something beautiful and terrible, and turn the world with a profession of love or a confession of long-overdue hatred.

But they simply stare, as if neither can believe what they just did.

Then, wordlessly, she reaches around and unties his hands. She takes the scissors, and does the same to his feet, standing before he can register anything at all and looking down at him.

He stands immediately, although he feels he ought to be kneeling: she is Queen here: she is above him, she always has been, and even he, the Dark One on his broken throne, could never truly ruin her. Not so long as there’s still that flicker of light in her eyes, behind the pain and loss and ruin, behind the burning. The light he fell in love with.

He ought to kneel, to worship her, to offer fealty. But here his knee is broken beyond kneeling, and she wouldn’t understand the gesture.

“Don’t follow me again.” She says, and he nods.

“Don’t tie me up again without asking first.” He replies, teasingly, and she nods, and looks as if she might laugh again.

“Hm, really? Because I think you bound and helpless and desperate was one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.”

“Anytime, dear,” he says, easily, because he’d do anything if she asked, anything at all, “Just tell me first, eh?”

“Okay,” she laughs, “Deal.”

He could kiss her senseless, take her again against the kitchen counters, carry her to the bed upstairs. He could tell her he loves her, loves the broken angel who tied him up and had her way and the teasing, beautiful, softhearted woman who joked with him about it afterwards. He could tell her she is everything, and that were things just a little different she’d be his wife and his partner in crime and his best friend, everything under the stars.

And she could laugh, or cry, or leave and never come back. And everything would end in tears and fires and ashes and nothing more, never anything more than that.

So instead, he just takes her hand, and presses one slow kiss to the knuckles, and he’s sure neither of them really understand why.


End file.
